Neither Rain, Sleet nor Gibberish . . .

The recent Newsweek article that erroneously said the Getty Museum was located in Mali was not the first instance in which the Getty folks have been given a strange address. There was the time consultant Vicki Porter ordered some software for the J. Paul Getty Trust here. “Imagine our surprise,” she said, “when the package arrived by express mail, addressed to: Jay, Paul, Jelly Trust.”

THE DEVIL, YOU SAY: Incidentally, when the Newsweek gaffe was brought to my attention, I said that a mistake might have been avoided if the Getty Museum didn’t insist on giving its location as Malibu. It’s actually in Pacific Palisades. Now I learn the latter is not immune to spelling variations, either.

“When I was a junior high school librarian,” Lois Feldman disclosed, “a student of mine took a phone call from a colleague at Palace Hades High School.”

POSTAL DECODING: One man who is impressed by the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to figure out botched addresses is George Blatchford. “Years ago, we lived on Iowa Street in Riverside,” he said. “We had some Egyptian exchange students over for Thanksgiving. Shortly afterward, we received via the U.S. mail a thank-you sent to the Blatchfords on Ten Wa Street.”

I0WA, TEN WA--see the connection?

Actually, Ten Wa sounds more like a type of ‘50s music sung by groups like the Jay, Paul, Jelly Trust.

A NUCLEAR MR. GOODWRENCH? Baldev Malhotra saw a sign at a gas station in L.A. that instructed the driver to put his or her car in “neutron” (see photo).

OR IS IT AN UNDETECTED SHIFT? The letterhead for the California Earthquake Authority struck Barry Wilk as a bit suspicious (see accompanying). Headquarters in New Hampshire? “Do they know something we don’t?” Wilk asked.

EL NINO’S ON EVERYONE’S MIND: Robert Curtis of Sherman Oaks sent along a typo from a magazine pitch that pictured a choo-choo and said, “Experience the thrill of transcontinental travel on one of the world’s longest rain journeys . . . “

NON-BUYERS’ REMORSE: David Pressler of Northridge was part of a traffic tie-up on the San Diego Freeway that was “totally California.”

“A car-hauling truck was parked by the side of the road,” he explained. “The catch was that although it was out of the way, off the road, it was hauling brand new Ferraris. You should have seen every single driver on the road slamming on the brakes to rubber-neck and sigh. Guilty, Your Honor. Me, too.”

ANOTHER CHEAP SHOT AGAINST REPTILES: Tom Blair wrote in San Diego magazine that “hard on the heels of the 4,000 delegates to the State Bar of California annual meeting” in San Diego came the “5,000 delegates to the International Reptile Breeders Show. Or would that be all one convention?”

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John Luonga of Sherman Oaks noticed that a jar of strawberry preserves showed an expiration date of May 4, 1998, 10:31. Which prompted Luonga to comment: “I can’t help but wonder what will happen at 10:31. More importantly if they can be that specific as to when the jam will go bad, do they mean a.m. or p.m.?” I hate to admit it, John, but I think the Jelly Trust is more qualified to answer.